


Raise Your Head

by Elvishdork



Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Depression, Post-Ending, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvishdork/pseuds/Elvishdork
Summary: Sometimes winning a war, doesn't feel like winning.Izuru and his life after the war with the Wandenreich.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Raise Your Head

Izuru doesn’t sleep. The realization should cause something to stir inside of him. The fact it doesn’t should bother him too, the logical part of him knows. But apathy eats at him like scavengers upon a corpse.

That at least he knows he is one. But being dead, as it turns out, isn't easier after all.

He doesn’t sleep because that’s how Captain Kurotsuchi willed it; for what creation needs sleep? He can still eat, but it feels monotonous: a leftover routine from life. Everything tastes bland in his mouth: Drinks with Shuuhei, lunch with Momo, tea with Captain Otoribashi. None of it fulfilling.

Sometimes Izuru comes close to hating the man for not just letting him die.

Slowly as life around him starts to rebuild, starts to settle into a new form of normal, Izuru starts to wonder what he’s still doing. Still alive - _not alive_ \- the battle is over and there’s really no need for a corpse that was only designed to keep the war against the Wandenreich alive long enough to win.

They won, the war is over, and he’s still here.

Though it feels strange to say they won, it doesn’t feel like they did. It doesn’t feel like Aizen’s defeat: with official sentencing coming from the Central 46 and a feeling of closure.

Or at least as close to closure as he could get. Gin was still dead, suddenly revealed to have been more complicated than just a traitor. But the conflict was over, life went on and things settled back into a semblance of normal. 

Some days Izuru thinks that maybe the only reason he’s still here is because the Third Division - like so much else - needs to be rebuilt. Izuru sees it in the lieutenant meetings: in all their empty chairs.

Eleventh Division’s Captain Kenpachi has yet to offer a name in place of its former lieutenant. Akon supposedly has the appointment from Captain Kurotsuchi, but his attendance is few and far between with whatever work has lately captivated his Captain taking priority. Mashiro of Ninth Division is hardly ever in attendance, claiming that Shuuhei’s presence means that she can devote herself to other activities for Captain Kensei. Additionally Isane, Iba, and Rukia -who are now acting captains - have empty seats fairly often. And no appointments at all have been made in the Eighth Division, which currently lacks leadership entirely.

Everyone tries to pull their weight with the inter-Division duties. For those who can’t - or simply choose not to attend the meetings - they mostly receive word of new policy through paperwork, hell butterfly, and word of mouth. Patchwork as it is, it seems to be holding up.

But outside of the lieutenant meetings, Izuru is haunted by even more empty seats. The Third Division didn’t just have casualties in the war, it was a casualty. More so than even the eleventh. Just about every seated officer was killed. Around him are a sea of new faces, either fresh out of the academy or transferred from other Divisions who had experienced people to spare. 

It’s a continuous reminder of how many were lost.

Like fresh blood collagulating on a wound, Izuru thinks. 

Sometimes he mistakes a new blonde for Togakushi and has to catch himself before the name passes his lips. Dead names and faces all around him when he doesn’t pay enough attention. It only fills him with a dull sense of guilt inside the hollow chest cavity where he knows his heart should be. He walks as a living corpse even when others who died with him don’t. He knows he should’ve died along with them.

Izuru wonders when the bloody scab will turn into a scar. He wonders when - if - it might actually heal.

Rose insists that it will. With a hand on his shoulder - the one not being supported by rods - Rose tells him that they can mourn. Grief may not be beautiful, but he insists that the healing from it is.

Privately, Izuru isn’t sure he agrees. How is he supposed to mourn the casualty of the Third Division when he himself was one such casualty too?

On the longer nights - when there isn’t enough paper work to keep him occupied till dawn - the far-off voice of Wabisuke calls. 

Even his inner world has changed: a once lush forest now reduced to brown grass and graying bark. “Wabisuke,” Izuru calls out. “Why am I here?” 

The shadows in this world do not play games. Izuru knows that neither he nor his partner have the patience for that kind of thing. Instead from the tree line emerges a shadow that Izuru knows too well. It is a man, large stone upon his back and chained to another weight carried upon his shoulder. “You so rarely answer my calls.”

“I’ve been busy,” Izuru replies. Both of them know it is a lie. 

Wabisuke does not respond. Instead he approaches Izuru, places a heavy hand upon the shoulder that would collapse if it weren’t for the rods. Then he slinks past and Izuru turns to follow because he knows never to leave his back exposed. 

“ _I was thinking_ ,” Wabisuke says, “ _maybe I’ll die. I was thinking it couldn’t be worse_.” 

An echo of Izuru’s own thoughts.

“ _But maybe it wouldn’t be better_ ,” his zanpakuto finishes. Izuru can feel the dull almost-sadness of his words in the rustle of dead tree branches, but says nothing because he can hide no secrets here. Wabisuke knows everything Izuru has ever thought. It makes it easier to torment him on long nights like this.

“What do you want?” Izuru asks. He repents his many shortcomings and mistakes enough as it is. He doesn’t need his zanpakuto to start him down the path of self-flagellation.

“Raise your head,” he says and then everything is crumbling away. Until it is only Izuru left sitting in his room with dawn a long way off. 

_Raise your head_ , Izuru repeats and feels like he should laugh. It feels impossible, something a dead man shouldn’t do. Not with the weight of the grave on him, all but a blade’s edge away. One wrong move in the next hollow attack and he wouldn’t be a walking corpse anymore.

Sighing, Izuru stands and walks back to the office with a stack of papers. Maybe it’s the settling life back to normal. Maybe it will never be normal again. Maybe this will be his new eternity. Does he raise his head and look towards that?

Day after day, with each new morning, Izuru does. 

Slowly paperwork comes to move more swiftly. The new seated officers are more than replacements; despite their idiosyncrasies they more than adequately fulfill their duties. Reports and official requests flow along the chain of command, all receiving the proper seals, stamps, and signatures. Drills are run in the courtyard again.

The courtyard is a courtyard again and not just a patch of grass amid the rubble. 

One day, over lunch, Shuuhei says, “I’m getting the magazine back up and running.” Izuru watches him speak as he tentatively picks broccoli out of the carton of takeout. “I’m hoping that you’ll pick up your poetry again for it.”

Izuru chooses then to pick out a bite of rice. It gives him an excuse to think. 

Shuuhei’s expression as they stare at each other is very strange, Izuru thinks. “It doesn’t have to be anything major. Maybe one or two haikus.” Shuuhei offers.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Izuru says and Shuhei’s expression softens. They finish their meals and by the end of it, it seems to Shuhei that it’s as good as done.

Izuru isn’t nearly so sure. How do dead men write poetry? 

Later, sitting at his desk, Izuru raises his gaze from his work to see the rest of the office. He looks at people at desks and doesn’t see the ghosts of faces that should be there. He doesn’t mistake names of the people around him anymore.

The new third seat doesn’t keep an immaculate desk, instead preferring some organized chaos only he sees rhyme and reason in. The new fourth seat hasn’t exactly gotten the hang of running drills, but others of the Third look up to him and listen and that is enough. The new fifth seat is actually quicker about paperwork, she runs anxiously from desk to desk to get everything where it needs to be on time.

He isn’t quite sure when it happened. Izuru wouldn’t be able to point to a day or month or week; but somewhere along the line these people have become the Third Division. The Third Division feels like a proper team again. Not just an ensemble of replacements.

Izuru looks at the clock and knows that Shuuhei is still waiting on his poems. He pulls a blank page from his desk.

War is nothing but despair. It doesn’t always have any clear sides or any real winners. Sitting there with the buzz of the Third Division around him, Izuru thinks that maybe a war can only be won through survival.

He is still here. There are others too: Captain Otoribashi, Shuuhei, Momo, Renji. Many others that survived too. Even with all that has been lost, it’s the survivors who pick up the pieces and rebuild.

**Author's Note:**

> Despite my own personal dislike of everything post-Aizen's defeat, Izuru is one of my favorite characters from the series. Tite Kubo really gave Izuru the short end of the stick throughout the series. I really wanted to give the poor guy some sense of hope and recovery.


End file.
